Pro player Green, an Atlanta Falcons defensive stalwart, fades back to take a pass at writing a football novel and is sacked. All-American hunk and defensive lineman Clay Blackwell's got it all: a beautiful, sensitive, loyal college sweetheart and a six- million-dollar contract as befits the first-round draft choice of the hapless Birmingham Ruffians, a recent expansion franchise. Only the Ruffians aren't slated to be laughingstocks any longer. Ruthless owner Humphrey Lyles has hired equally ruthless new head coach Vance White, who believes in performance-enhancement drugs. At first good guy Clay won't go along—but becoming coach White's whipping boy, he caves in. Meanwhile, assistant coach Gavin Collins, token black on the staff, tries to buoy Clay's spirits when he's benched; and veteran Mad Max Dresden introduces Clay to pro football's perks—wild parties, cocaine, freebie trips, etc. A dream season ensues. An NFL first, the expansion Ruffians win game after game and are in the hunt for a Super Bowl berth. The Ruffians are lionized by the media and their fans. Clay is so overwhelmed that he barely feels the loss of his girlfriend. And if steroid use has caused Clay's hair to fall out and his back to be ravaged by acne, it seems a small price to pay. Then Max suffers a heart attack and dies, forcing Clay to rethink his priorities. He flees the team, reconciles with his girl, and decides to take the two million he's earned thus far and run. Except that Clay's agent, as slimy as Boss Lyle and Coach White, says that he'll forfeit all through breach of contract. No choice, back goes no-longer-humble Clay. The ensuing resolution is right out of Prince Valiant. Dime-novel characters, gloppy dialogue, and sex-by-the-numbers make for a drab outing—zero yards gained, zero points scored.
Pub Date: Sept. 14, 1993
ISBN: 1-878685-78-3
Page Count: 298
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1993
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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